Re: The Warm Equations

On Mon, 24 Jun 2024 22:03:27 -0700, Robert Woodward
<robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:

In article <v5c8pc$n12$1@reader1.panix.com>,
jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>

In article <v5c7ij$113u3$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire  <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/23/2024 11:37 AM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

Interesting to note the way margins of a real-life space venture are run:
 
Two astronauts have been stuck at the ISS for an extra two weeks,
so far, because their ride has flat tires, and it's not a crisis,
and nobody has had to volunteer to step out the airlock.

>
For those who do not know, this is a play on "The Cold Equations"
awesome incredibly sad short story:
   https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cold-equations/
>

Alternatively, it's a terrible story about people with extremely
shitty pre-flight safety procedures.
 
https://reactormag.com/on-needless-cruelty-in-sf-tom-godwins-the-cold-equation
s/

>
Complacency can subvert excellently designed pre-flight safety
procedures. BTW, I came up with an interplanetary space drive
(non-Newtonian of course) that would be very mass sensitive (inspired by
the stutterwarp in GDW's roleplaying game _Traveller: 2300AD_, later
renamed _2300AD) and recalculations would be beyond the capability of
the shuttle's computer and sensor installation.

Yes, but having a door that locks so that passengers can't just walk
into your shuttle seems like a fairly simple precaution without much
risk of problems from it